With a powerful jerk, Blair grabbed me under my arms, reaching over Payton and pulling me back to solid ground. Together, the three of us sank to the floor. Only now did I notice the tears I was shedding, and the trembling that seized my entire body. My shoulder was sending shock waves of pain through my limbs, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Payton.
I didn’t realize at the time that Sean was still fighting Nathaira and Alasdair, and that he was on the verge of not being able to bear many more of Alasdair’s hard blows. I had no idea that the police were storming up the stairs with their guns drawn. I only half registered the sound of the shot that brought Nathaira down. I didn’t know that she had mumbled words in Gaelic as she lay dying, or that Sean, huddled next to her, had hastily made the sign of the cross while a final flash of lightning lit up the sky.
I was aware of none of it. I only had eyes for the man in front of me.
Payton. His love had saved me. How stupid I had been to doubt him. I realized how unfairly I had treated him, but it looked like it was too late. His eyelids fluttered. He coughed and gasped for air. I pressed my hand on his wound, but the bleeding wouldn’t stop.
His hand reached out for my face, stroked my cheek, and barely skimmed my lips. Again he drew a pressed breath.
“Please…” he barely managed to say.
Tears ran down my face uncontrollably. I told myself this couldn’t happen. But the certainty in his eyes destroyed my hopes.
“Please… Sam,” he repeated, desperately.
I knew what he wanted.
A kiss.
But I didn’t want to kiss him, not then. To kiss him and allow him to die. No, I wanted him to stay with me, to kiss me every day from now on, to hold me lovingly in his arms.
“Payton, please stay with me, stay awake. The ambulance will be here any minute!” There was so much I wanted to say. I wanted to order him to get well again, to forbid him to die. I even wished the curse would come back, with all my might, if it would mean healing his injury.
His hand fell limply from my cheek, and he closed his eyes.
“No! Payton!” My loud sobs almost suffocated me. “Please stay here.” I leaned my face down and begged. “I love you… I need you… I can’t live without you. Please… Don’t leave me!”
After every single word I kissed his face—his eyelids, the little scar on his chin, the tip of his nose. I felt a weak puff of air on my skin when I got close to his mouth, and in desperation, I kissed him. Our lips touched and our tears blended.
Then he moved no longer.
“No!” I cried, shaking him until the pain in my shoulder forced me to stop. Then a paramedic pushed me aside, and I leaned against the wall, numb.
“No pulse, no respiration,” the man drily noted as they bundled Payton onto a stretcher
Trying to blind out the world, I shut my eyes. I wished I could shut off everything. I didn’t want to hear anything else, didn’t want to feel any more pain. It was my fault, I thought. None of this would have happened without me.
Finally, Sean knelt next to me and lifted me up, carrying me like a child down the steps. I hardly noticed the strained, worried faces of my friends behind the police line.
During the ride to the hospital, I couldn’t get one question out of my head:
My one true love—had that been it?